Sim, the Internet's major infrastructure growth happened at the hands of ISP's all over this country.
This was back when there was a ton of competition. That competition has dwindled to almost nothing today. Where there used to be 30, or so, nationwide Tier 1 providers, we now have 4 or 5 (if that).
Per region, there may be 2 Tier 1 providers. There simply is not enough competition anymore. No reason for them to bust a nut to make sure the infrastructure is properly extended.
The reasons for the death of the competition are many and complex. Some were just managed poorly. Some were run out of business by using legal loopholes. Some were closed due to not being able to take on a large legal battle to defend what they built. Some were victims of thier environments.
I ran an ISP business for 7 years. It was doing really well, until Verizon decided I was doing too well, and they offered all my DSL clients free service for 1 year and waived the switch-over fee.
Within 30 days, I lost 80% of my DSL client base. I closed my doors. Come to find out, Verizon and other telcos, had a pretty neat deal going on. Once every 6 to 8 months they would target an ISP and do the same thing.
What they did to me was illegal. I even called them and told them that, and they responded, "It is the way we do business now." The State Attorney never responded to my complaint. You see, Verizon's headquarters are based in Texas. One ISP took Verizon to court. Won a judgement. 9 years and 2 bankruptcies later he had not gotten one dime from Verizon.
The FTC has also ignored the complaints, as well as the FCC. This type of thing has been happening for the last 10 years, all over the nation, in a slow but sure takeover of the Internet by the telcos. Each year there are fewer and fewer ISP's.
